JE #2 Historical Amnesia

Coming to terms with the realities of our cultures, of our people, of our ancestry and the injustices against it all really numbs me with anger, historical amnesia being a top stressor. Why was it that our public education school systems did everything but teach us, all it did was make sure we were brainwashed. Clean of any faltering nationalist attitudes so that we always looked at the american flag with pride. My dad did just that and so did I.

The Conquest, left scars that run deep within the institution and further deep into our homes. Where skin color makes a difference in the treatment at home, where the system made sure to ignore and erase our stories from the history books. Where we in our psyche have been taught to turn the tables on our own country it was the Mexican American War when in reality it was a war instigated by the US thus a US-Mexico War. Reflecting back on it all, even the smallest things became a conquest of the mind.

My skin was too dark,
My name was too brown,
My home wasn't rich enough,
My religion was embarrassing,
My grandma was a curandera and not a doctor,
My family was too big.

Anything that made connection to being anything less than "American" would cut my insides. Well fuck that and fuck colonialism. I'm done.